I wish i knew about it then lol but oh well. Red and Blue is now a $70 full art and Oak is $35. I think it’s good for the hobby that non-charizard/waifu modern cards are valuable but my wallet isnt.
I suspect this is an unpopular opinion: The PSA bright red border around the label detracts a little from the card.
While I love my PSA graded slabs and I basically don’t think about the labels, I’d prefer the label to be something more like the BGS gold or silver with black lettering on it. I do like PSA over BGS because of the form factor of the slab, how they grade 1-9, and I like how small the grade is compared to BGS or CGC but still.
This doesn’t mean I think PSA should change their labels. At this point, I feel like most people enjoy the label because of familiarity.
P.S. Sorry if this isn’t directly Pokemon related enough.
It’s PSA’s own fault they’re in this mess, tbh. Last year they had a 7.50 USD per card action despite already being behind 4+ months on submissions. They underpay employees, and either refuse to get new employees (which would be plain dumb if you’re almost halve a year behind schedule and new orders keep piling up…), or simply can’t get any new employees or keep existing employees due to these low wages (also stupid, considering it’s a multimillionaire company).
Yes, no one could have predicted that Pokémon (and other TCGs I might add) would have exploded this much due to the pandemic and YouTubers and what-else in 2020, but that doesn’t take away the fact that PSA makes very poor business decisions and they’re in this mess mostly due to their own fault.
I also am curious how they’re going to resolve this, since the times keep rising by the day and it won’t take long before the jokes we make about “I’ve just send out my PSA bulk submission. I hope it’s back before Christmas 2022.” aren’t too far from the truth anymore. Ah well, future will tell. They’re still the #1 grading company for Pokémon and sports, and I doubt that will change anytime soon if at all.
Having a pedigree on a graded card is cool as fuck and I would love to have a uniform “Qwachansey Collection” one day. I don’t think that’s egotistical it’s just a nice way to recognize the work you put towards a collection. CGC will put on the back of case if you want btw. If it’s not your card who cares if someone else enjoys having their own pedigree. And if you do plan to buy a card with pedigree I assume you can recase it anyway if you don’t like the label.
I agree it’s frustrating that “average Joe’s” like us can’t get the same benefit but since Aoki has a partnership in place with PSA for the graded Funkos, may as well use a cool perk that is offered by them mn
Any reasonable business which has a profitable model would be looking to adapt and scale up if in the situation PSA is in.
It would be like a gem mining and jewellery making company sitting on a pile of gems and slowly putting them out for sale when they could be employing and training more jewel makers to increase their turnover and profit before the supply of gems starts slowing down.
If they just start returning cards that’s going to be super bad for business and destroy their reputation. I do wonder what their security and insurance is like though, there must be over £100 million of cards sitting in their warehouse.
Or maybe the world is running out of plastic so they can’t get enough cases
I seem to be in the minority here but I think PSA labels kinda suck and have a theory the die hard supporters of PSA cases and haters of CGCs cases only think that way because PSA’s slabs and labels have been a standard for so long. PSA labels suck and CGC is superior
If I had to guess, PSA is intentionally not scaling to demand in order to keep the market hot. If PSA finished their entire backlog within the next month, the graded card market would collapse. Rather than have that happen, they’re intentionally moving through their backlog at a snail’s pace. As a result, prices continue to increase due to lack of supply and cards remain desirable and the market stays hot. If all of their backlog hit the market at once, it could permanently damage the market and the perception that there isn’t enough supply to meet demand.
Either they’re doing this, or they’re just astoundingly incompetent (or both).
Eh you’re giving them a lot of credit. I’m assuming they just have capacity constraints. Historic demand coupled with what I assume is a timely/costly hiring/training process makes it difficult to stay on top of current orders while subsequently recruit new graders. There’s also the need for addressing office space, etc. Couple in the fact that there’s now another major competitor- CGC, who is perhaps another competitor for talent, etc. I don’t think PSA envisioned demand lasting this long. Based on their timeline for when they thought the card saver shortage would end (I think fall 2020?), they were probably expecting hype to recede. Then, they would get to grading all of the bulk. Unfortunately for them, this didn’t happen. Now, they have a sweet deal where they are flooded with $50/card+ orders that require less effort for more money. They’re prioritizing those because it makes the most financial sense and enables them to “cash in” on the demand that’s happening. They’re really going to need to figure out what happens to the bulk though. Perhaps it is returned? Not sure that would please graded gem or ludkins, perhaps their most-reliable customers.
